dazza14

Good advice here, thank you very much. I think the 'worry' comes from the fact that the other members can pick up a new song almost instantly, the drummer does his thing, the singer sings and plays rhythm so his part is quite easy musically, the lead guitarist I've noticed will simply pick the individual notes from the chord leaving me to fill in the space but I have bad habits that I stick to, like scales, arpeggios and changing from finger to pick to thumb to get differing sounds, but his comment about being on the root note bugged me because it's something i'm sensitive about. I could chuck in some needless showy bits but I want to compliment the song and not ruin it by showing off... I leave that to the drummer and lead guitarist.

I'm in an originals band playing reggae, punk and rock. We had a bit of a 'shake up' before Christmas when the singer and his wife split, this wouldn't normally be much of an issue but she had written 90% of the original songs (he wrote the music, she wrote lyrics) so when they split, she 'pulled' the songs. Meaning we as a band had to start writing our own stuff! This has worked out better than anyone would have foreseen with us all contributing with songs and us becoming tighter as a unit from it. But i'm finding that when new songs are introduced it's becoming more and more difficult for me to come up with bass lines that A) fit/suit the song and are interesting to play. I should point out that I've never had a lesson and I tend to stick to root notes and build a line from these, this is fine for my reggae playing because I grew up listening to reggae, ska and all that groovy stuff so that style of music is natural to me but for the rock stuff I really struggle and last night at practice, in jest, the lead guitarist called me "Mr. Root Note", which p*ssed me off somewhat. So, in short, i'm after advice for coming up with bass lines for rock songs. It's probably worth pointing out that my drummer is strictly punk and he struggles with any other style of playing, his reggae is ok but he tends to get 'carried away' at gigs and totally ruin the rhythm of those songs, something that makes me want to throttle him!!

[i]I play a mix of reggae and punk and I flit between the two depending on what song we're playing, I play a Squier jazz through a Fender Rumble stack and I can find both of the tones I need just by increasing the tone knob (I turn it up for the punky high sound and turn it off for the bass-y reggae) and that does it. The rest comes from my right hand technique, punk is fingernail or finger style above the bridge pickup and reggae is thumb or finger above the 20th fret. Am I happy with my tone? Yes and no, yes for what I need and no because i'd love one that covers both.... [/i]

A friend of mine recently changed his jazz pickups from his '96 Fender MIM Jazz (it's the one with the one-piece scratch plate - no separate chrome control plate) and i'm toying with the idea of popping them into my Squier VM to see what difference it makes to the sound, but with lots of sound examples on websites such as Youtube I was hoping to find an example that means I won't have to faff around with the soldering and re-soldering of the pickups. So what i'm after is info on these pickups. Such as what are they? Would they just be Fender Jazz pickups? I've attached a photo of the same bass that my friend has (it's from ebay)[attachment=156796:$_12.jpg]

Got serious GAS for three basses at the mo, at one end of the price spectrum its the Harley Benton single pickup 50's P-Bass in sunburst, then it's a Fender Modern Player Jazz Bass in satin (with the four way selector switch) and then the 'high end' of the spectrum is the Nate Mendel Fender P Bass... ooh lovely...

I've never actually seen a plate on e-bay, I just thought it was strange that a big percentage of these basses had the extra neck plate missing, both from second hand and new sellers. I think out of all of the ones I've looked at on ebay or here only one had both plates. And i'm struggling to remember that one! But then again it was a late night last night! I'm not saying people are stealing them or keeping them in the hope they fetch a lot of money, but it's odd that this extra is often missing.

One of my initial thoughts was maybe the basses were shipped from... um, wherever they come from, and the neckplates weren't included in the UK ones. Just a thought... The Dawson's was Reading, top shop and really good staff but just really odd, especially with the e-bay and the one on here for sale missing them too.

I'm a fan of the Nate Mendel P Bass, I tried one in Dawsons and absolutely fell in love with the neck and playability of it, and I've NEVER played a Precision that I liked, let alone liked this much! But while I was chatting to the fella in there about the bass he told me that the bass comes with a special/extra neck plate with a Foo Fighters design engraved into it. They'd had three of these basses in the shop recently and although the others had sold none of them left the shop with the extra neckplate! The reason for this was the shops assistance had swiped them to either keep or flog on e-bay. Because I like a bargain and would seriously consider buying one of these second hand i'm yet to find one with the extra neck plate, there is one in the For Sale section here, no neck plate (the shop had misplaced it), and there was recently one on e-bay but, again, no neck plate. So what is going on with the neck plates??? Anyone else found this???

Absolutely GUTTED I only read this today - three days too late - i'm a Swindon fella and I would have been there for this!

This looks very, very nice, lots of good reviews from other buyers of this bass on Thomann website. I also like the look of the PB-50 SB Vintage Series, looks like the 1950's single pickup P Bass... VERY nice.[attachment=155483:7511993_800.jpg] Anyone got any info on these babies?!

[b][i][u]I'm playing a Vintage Icon in my profile pic, fantastic fretless, I like it so much that it replaced my usual, go-to bass, for a few months last year and i'm looking at getting a fretted version. I hope you like your new bass, I love it... I even like the relic'd look (to be honest I don't get the fuss about it, if anything it makes the body feel nicer due to it not being coated in sticky smooth resin) ps no idea why my comment is underlined, damn controls...[/u][/i][/b]

I did this a few months ago to the same bass, I found the stock Duncan Designed pups were a bit too 'light' for what I wanted. After asking lots of people lots of questions and realising that there is a huge amount of choice out there (ranging from inexpensive ones to very expensive ones) I decided to go with what I knew. My Vintage Fretless - i'm playing in my profile pic - has Wilkinson pickups, and they are really good, in fact it was this bass that made me realise how flat my VM ones were, so I simply added the same pickups to my Squier. Bought them off e-bay for less than £50. Never looked back. So for a relatively cheap way of doing it, you can go down the Wizard route, they get great reviews, look at Wilkinson.

[size=3]Well I've decided to put a few things on a shopping list and see what comes up first on here or e-bay, Gumtree etc. 1. A neck (63mm pocket) preferably a Fender type headstock. 2. A humbucker, second hand if possible although the Wilkinson ones are pretty cheap brand new. 3. Neck plate, cheap on ebay. 4. Typical hardwear like knobs and electrics. 5. If it all sounds nice and lovely, a new scratchplate minus the neck pup 'gap'.[/size]

I really don't get on with flats on my 'jazz' (it's a Squier, not a Fender), tried them for about two days after I liked flats on my fretless but I didn't like it, I like to try a bit of slap and pop occasionally and flats didn't give me that plus I like my jazz to sound bright and beautiful (all creatures great and....) and the flats weren't doing that either. So i'm flats on my fretless and rounds on my fretted.

I think i'm going to let fate decide, by this I mean i'll finish sanding the body and chuck it on e-bay for a 7 day listing, if it sells, great, decision made and i'll put the money towards the Squier, but if it doesn't - i'll go into my shed and dig out the router to make the cavity for the HB and go from there. I think whatever happens it's going to take some time to either save the money for the Squier or get the money for the parts i'll need...

[attachment=149888:DSCN9860.JPG]Update; I've done a quick mock-up of how the bass would/could look with a modified scratch plate and Humbucker fitted... I think I would also consider going thru-body with the bridge and string feed so add to this a new bridge and possibly a new loom from Kiogon for the 'lectrics.

I'm torn between working on a bass body I bought (right here on BC!) or saving my pennies and hopefully picking a second hand bass. I'll explain... I bought this 1975 red Columbus bass from here a few months ago, been stripping the paint away to reveal a rather 'nice' ply body with the intentions to either sell on or leave until the impulse to do something with it came along. Anyway in the meantime I've played a Squier Jaguar HB bass which I really liked and it started me thinking maybe I could fit a humbucker to this jazz body, get a new scratchplate made - to cover the neck pickup cavity of the jazz - wait for a neck to appear by magic on here or E-Bay and hey presto I've got my own version of the HB Jag/Jazz! [attachment=149887:jazz red.gif]

[quote name='Thunderbird' timestamp='1385934847' post='2293898'] My go to bass at present is my Vintage V4 Icon I have modded it a bit and it is pretty much all that I need in a bass and it is the cheapest bass I have ever owned it is certainly not the best bass I have owned but it is just so comfy to play and sounds pretty damn good too and I am not worried about it getting scratched and stuff like I am with other basses I own or have owned [/quote] What mod's have you done to your bass? I own one of these and as much as I like it, it's always interesting to know what others have done to improve it...

My Squier VM Jazz, bloody love this instrument! Have had it for five years since I bought it from PMT in Oxford for £250 brand new (why these basses are now over £300 is anyone's guess) and it's still the only Fender or Squier Jazz bass I've tried that I've liked. Every gig I've played since 2010 - except maybe two or three - has been played with this bass and it has the most amazing punk tone and can easily switch to a reggae, thumpy tone with very little variation to the instrument, just a fiddle with the tone control and I play closer to the neck for the reggae. I'd never sell this bass and I can't even see myself needing anything else... although I do like the Humbucker Squier Jaguar basses...

I tried one of these yesterday in Dawsons and for the money it's a one hell of a good choice for a backup/stay-at-home bass to noodle on when I need something easy to grab to work out a riff or whatever. Anyway, the question I have is, what is beneath the scratchplate? I'm guessing nothing, there doesn't seem to be any need for routing but I want to make sure before I part with any cash over the this here internet... also, does anyone own one of these and have any opinions on them?[attachment=148809:tn1_442941.jpg]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I tried one of these in Dawsons in Reading (top fella assisted me, only a young kid - compared to my 37yrs - but he was happy to give me an amp and a cable and say "help yourself!" top bloke!) and this bass blew me away, it's so easy to play and I was bashing away on it for about 10mins. I tried about ten basses in all, Squiers and Fenders mostly (the Squier Jag with a single humbucker also impressed me) but this one was awesome. I've now informed my wife that I want to sell the contents of our home for one... she replied with the classic response "but do you need it?" YES I DO!!![/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]These basses are fantastic! I tried one last year in a local music shop and it played beautifully. Only one thing put me off, firstly was the finish, it was a white with black s-plate but the entire body was covered in a thick plastic that felt more like a 'shell' than a paint or varnish. But as a bass it was really, really good, much better than the more expensive Fenders they had in store. [/font]

[attachment=147914:5613444954_c4300bcd74_b.jpg] Here is a full length pic to show it in all its glory.

[attachment=147913:5613436560_19d48a455f_b.jpg] Had a desire to build a slab-body 'tele' bass. After a few months of waiting patiently for something suitable to appear on e-bay I managed to pick up a tele shaped bass neck (with a weird decal on it) and a further few weeks later a slab precision body appeared, so began the 'put-it-together'. I had to do some serious wood filling to change the shape of the pickup cavity so I could remove the pickups and replace them with a single pickup but I think it came out ok. This is an old 'bitsa' it's since been sold on (for a loss I might add) but I really enjoyed doing it and I thought it was about time I shared it with other bc'ers.